Minsk and Kiev

the varyag does not have engines yet, vince. perhaps a cicvilian cruser dual use engines would work. the ships aren't that deteriorated. Some sandblasting, welding, and a new paint job and varyag will be good as new.

I believe that the chinese could complete vayag in three years, and make it opereational in five years.

the plan should not worry about minsk and kiev yet. maybe they can ferry helicopters to taiwan, but nothing more yet. or they can send helicopters to patrol the south china seas.

this is not a china-taiwan conversation, so hopefully vince will put his ego away and contribute positively.

vincelee 去死吧。

Well...about Varyag...it does not have engines yet..which is a quiet big problem.

Who actually knows any countries that are willing to sell China their carrier engines?

About Minsk and Kiev, i agree with you that the PLAN shouldn't worry about those 2 ships yet..but i do not agree that minsk/kiev can only supply helicopters to Taiwan. They should be able to carry more than that..at least some Su-30s or Mig-31s, or in opinion it wouldn't be much of a help for the PLAN in taiwan (no offence to chen shui bian's ppl) or in the South China Sea. Use Varyag alone isn't enough for sea battles.

varyag will do against taiwans fleet.

minsk are kiev are vtol carriers, so it cant carry su's, even if they were, they'd still be too small. flankers need a kutznev size carrier.

i didn't say carrier engine, i said commercial liner dual use engines, like the one on queen mary.

"Are you really Vince?
You don't sound like him.
First of all, you capitalize the first words in your sentences, and secondly, you are actually writing in coherent sentences."

I agree.

"vincelee 去死吧。"

Let him say more, if he's really the vince we know then we can start insulting him.

"Who actually knows any countries that are willing to sell China their carrier engines?"

Well... I think Spain wanted to build China a carrier before, China refused the deal.

"the plan should not worry about minsk and kiev yet. maybe they can ferry helicopters to taiwan, but nothing more yet. or they can send helicopters to patrol the south china seas."

Use one of them as an AC first and see how it turns out. If it turned out OK without any major problems, use both as AC.

you guy don't get my point.

any country will sell you dual use engines, so no problem.

the plan already has it's own indegedous carrier programs, so doing a gorkie on minsk and kiev is expensive and time consuming.

carriers aren't the future for china. the need smaller attack ships and missle destroyers to take on a US cvbg. one or two carriers will be good because it will give china some projection ability, but not too many.

vince hasn't said anything too offensive yet, so be nice to the little $%#@
(for now)

well i've have given my toughts on this matter earlyer, but little refresh might be good.

I personally think that it's quite useless to try comisioning Minsk and Kiev in to PLAN service. Why? First of all those ships are old...Kiev was laid down in july 1970 and minsk december 1972, Now the Soviet shipbuilding quality wasen't the best of the world and these ships weren't good desings from the start. They tended to pitch at the fore in heavy seas. Also, as it been mentioned, the machinery was far from succesfull, all 7 soviet carriers have undergone major fires and all due the same reasons: the unrealible pressure fired steam plants. The ships where in bad shape when they where sold to china and given the time that they are being whitout major overhaul, it's desperate to try and make them operational again. It propaply could be done, in theory, but in practice is just waste of valuable resources...they are just too old to rock'n roll...

Seccondly the ships overall desing features are major handycap. The ships where orginally desinged to be updated Moskva class whit improved helicopter capapility and the ASuW weapon suite that had to be deleted from the Moskvas during the desing date. The V/STOL concept game along only after the Yakolev desing burey succesfully demostrated the Yak-36 prototype to the naval chiefs...The ships where also sort of a compromize for real carriers, the Soviet navy was still recovering from Hrurzevs era and wasen't still ready for real carriers. But now to china. If by some miracle the Kiev and Minsk could be overhauled to the point that they are again usefull, what exactly could china do whit them? China doesen't posses any V/STOL technology and thats leaves the ships only whit helicopters. for my obinion these ships are too big and expensive to serve as a helicopter carrier. The same ammount of money that is needed to refit these ships could easily buy a small Chahri Narubet-style helicopter carrier.

Then there's always the Gorshkov conversion for India...why shouldn't China go ahead whit these ships in similar way...clear up the deck for Ski-jump??
Well Gorshkov was orginally blanned for that kind of conversion, thats why there's no reloads for the SS-N-12 and no SA-N-3 launchers...the Kiev and Minsk are another deal. I've never seen the blueprints of these ships but if you remove so much from these ships foresections it propaply changes dramatically the ships overall balance. Also the hangar base expesially in kiev is way smaller than in Gorshkov, so in that case also the already limited airwing of the Groshkov conversion would be even smaller. And the airwing itself is a proplem. China doesen't have any suitable jets to operate from the carrier. Chinese aircraft manufacturing isen't in the phase that it could start desing carrierbrone aircrafts even from existing models, in this case the J-10. It would just take too long to get the J-10s naval version to work and then the already ageing ships would be totaly overaged. The Su-27/33/J-11 is just too big and the MiG-29 isen't part of the chinese airfleet..

So basicly, in my obinion trying to get these ships operational is just too big effort. The attenion and recources should be focused on the Varyag, wich is far more ideal phase to become the first fixedwing aviation asset of the PLAN.

Now this was my obinion, feel free to comment and give your own wievs...

uses:

Training

makeshift helicopter carrier.

screw aircraft! fit it with missles and make it a cruiser.

refurbinish it and sell it to some carrier noob nation.

make mock carriers to scare shit out of US

Well, we could always take out all the stuff on the ships and do a complete refit...

But I agree, there's no point commisioning them.

However, China desperately needs carrier training. These would do fine for that job.

Now now, PLABUDDY, it's not nice to tell me to die.

on the issue of engines, to actually replace the engine in the Varyag is going to be problematic;

first you need to take out the engine "block", then the shaft. And although I've never seen the blue prints for the Varyag, I doubt engine accessibility on the scales of your common car was in mind.

And even IF the PLAN some how acquires large maritime engines, these are still civilian use. Remember, TOL operations on carriers constantly require a high steaming speed, and I honestly don't believe Bloody Mary can achieve 30+ knots.

thats why you combo those engines with indegedous or french diesels.

vince, are you sure your being yourself today?... your posting positively...

Since china has varyag blueprints, they can make modifications with more ease.

and you only need 20 knots to launch